Volleyball: Rosary’s net game gives Genoa-Kingston fits, but Cogs stave off upset bid

AURORA – Despite facing a considerable height disadvantage at the net in its Class 2A Rosary Regional semifinal, Rosary hung with top-seeded Genoa-Kingston – and for long stretches even dominated up front.

The Royals fell short in their upset bid, 25-15, 23-25, 25-15, as the Cogs advance to the championship match to face No. 4 Marengo for the title at 6 p.m. Thursday.

“They were shorter, but man they could get up,” said G-K outside hitter Lily Mueller, who had 12 kills in the win. “They played smart. It’s a solid team. Their front line was really good, and we didn’t close too many blocks.”

The Royals (18-18) led early in all three sets. Eventually the Cogs (32-4) went on to take control in first and third sets, but the run didn’t come early enough in Set 2. Ryann Leonard, Jesicca Hirner and Sarah Shmidt gave the G-K attackers fits at the net all game.

Schmidt had a late kill in the second game to push the Royals’ lead to 24-18, but G-K rolled off five straight before Clare McEniry secured the Rosary win with a kill.

“We are a little bit smaller size-wise when it comes across the net,” Martinez said. “But I do honestly believe a couple of our girls are athletic enough to get up to a height that’s competitive to Genoa’s attackers on the other side.”

After the third game was tied 8-8, Alayna Pierce picked up a couple of her 13 kills on the day as the Cogs expanded the lead to 17-10. Rosary rolled off three straight, including one rally where the Royals stuffed the Cogs at the net three straight times before Schmidt got a kill.

But the Cogs quickly got the lead back to seven and started their closing run with a kill by Mueller and a block by Kailey Kline and Kaitlin Rahn.

“I thought we were mentally tough,” Genoa-Kingston coach Keith Foster said. “Rosary challenged us. They did a good job in that match, and I thought we did a great job responding to what they brought to us. We played a strong match. It was an imperfect match, but we came back stronger every time we made one of those imperfect plays.”

Rahn added eight kills for the Cogs, while Alivia Keegan had 10 kills and 25 assists. Hannah Langton had 13 digs, and Pierce had 10.

“Their front-line defense impacted us quite a bit,” Foster said. “We didn’t do a good enough job working around the block or changing up our shots. Overall we’re going to learn from that. But we did expect a battle tonight.”

Mueller said the team learned from its second-set shortcoming and started bouncing back when Rosary went on runs, something that was lacking in Game 2.

“The second set, I think we came in a little too confident,” Mueller said. “We were like, ‘We got it, we got it.’ We got too comfortable. And we shouldn’t have gotten too comfortable.

“The third set, we showed we deserved to win.”